Role control based workflow management for research projects

Research project management refers to coordinating and facilitating all aspects in the project lifecycle, including project establishment, schedules, contracts, deliverables, equipment, expenditure, etc. Although there are various procedures of information process in research project management, many are flow-like activities. Hence they lend themselves to the workflow technologies, which can automate the flow of operations. On the other hand, it is often the case that the subject involved in the research activities has multiple roles, each of which has its own procedure and requirement for work, even for the same job. To that end, in this paper, we develop a collaborative information system for research project management. Our system employs the workflow model and role-based flow control. The former enables the automation of project management, while the latter makes it adaptable to the requirements of complicated and collaborative work.